Chocolate Orange Muffins

 This is a Farmers Wife Original *With help from the Farming Tot!!*

I should make you all wait for this recipe... I mean I have so many other breakfast recipes I've been holding onto that I haven't posted yet, and I promised you my silly story about hashbrowns... I mean seriously this recipe is worth waiting for, but then you couldn't all rush out and get everything you need to make these for Sunday morning!! Ok, I convinced myself, you can have this recipe now! And oh my goodness, these are AMAZING!!! Now I can't take all the credit for these muffins, they were invented in the Farming Tot's brain. Now some of you are probably thinking, then how good can they be? But let me assure you, when it comes to anything chocolate my son is more of an expert that I am. I asked him what he wanted for dinner yesterday morning (we were getting ready to go to the store), and he said, "Um... Chocolate, Chocolate Muffins. And Oranges!" So I asked him if I could put the orange in the muffins, and I seriously thought he was going to flip out as that apparently sounded very "Nummy, Nummy in my Tummy!" (Which is also his review of this recipe when I asked him how it was hehe!). And I will say, my son is right, these muffins are very yummy! They have a very light texture to them, not as heavy as a normal muffin, especially a chocolate one, which I really enjoyed. The orange flavor was spot on, not too heavy or overpowering the chocolate, but subtle and scrumptious! If you love the chocolate and orange combo, these are for you! But once again, I can't take all the credit, as I just came up with the ingredients and baked them. So I guess you could say these are really a Farming Tot original, since coming up with the idea is half the battle! Enjoy! ;-)

Ingredients: makes 12-15 muffins
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Juice from half an orange
Zest from half an orange
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Extra chocolate chips, to sprinkle on top

Glaze: Optional
1/3 cup powdered sugar (more if needed for consistency)
Zest from half an orange
Juice from half an orange

Directions:
In a medium bowl, combine together all the dry ingredients, including the chocolate chips, set aside. In a large bowl beat together the eggs, oil, milk, vanilla, orange zest and juice. Add the dry ingredients and mix til just moistened. Line or grease 12-15 muffin wells, (I like using the baking cups) and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Using an ice cream scoop, fill the wells with one full scoop. Sprinkle the tops with a few more chocolate chips. Bake for 15-20 minutes, check at 15 and if a toothpick entered into the center comes back out clean (remember if you go through a chocolate chip it will come out chocolatey, but so long as it's not uncooked dough you're good), then they're done. Cool on wire racks. While cooling put together the glaze, you'll want the glaze to be thin enough to run off the back of a spoon, but thick enough to stay on the muffin. Can add more or less juice and sugar to get the right consistency. Using a spoon, drizzle a small amount of glaze onto each cooled muffin.

Review:
These really were delightful muffins, not only that but they're actually pretty simple, which I love! Now I told you the Farming Tot loved these and came up with the idea, but I didn't tell you that within about 10 minutes of my serving him a plate loaded with a muffin, eggs and bacon, the muffin was completely gone! Now that is unusual for my son, so you know it is good! Kid approved and Mama's happy recipe! 5 Stars!